


Apocrypha

by kangeiko



Category: Carnivale
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:24:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her mother always has to have her own way. Sofie, Apollonia and Ben, S1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apocrypha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedeadparrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeadparrot/gifts).



> Many thanks to dancinbutterfly for the beta!

Sofie's a good girl. She is. She has to remind herself of this most days, because her momma sure ain't gonna. Her momma's gonna rail and throw things at her and expect to be cleaned and bathed and fed like a baby just the goddamn same. It's always been like this, and Sofie doesn't know any different; certainly not enough to mind it over much. All families have their nightmares, sure, and she'd much rather have her mother railing on and on than have her going on at her to work the Cooch Show. Except that Libby and Dora Mae don't seem to mind that, so maybe it's just what you're used to.

These days, though, it's been getting worse. And by 'these days' it's only been the last few, since that Hawkins boy joined the train and starting putting everyone in a dizzy. The Dreifusses were nuts 'bout him, it seemed like, but for all the wrong reasons. Samson - well, who the hell knew what Samson was thinking at any one time. He still treated her like a little girl, though she didn't mind it much; it were certainly better than Jonesy pointedly _not_ doing that.

_He ain't for you._

She put the hairbrush down. "I know that, momma. It ain't like I'm eloping with him. I don't encourage him."

_You do. I can tell._

"Momma, stop it, I don't. You know I don't. But we need people in our corner."

_We don't. We've got Samson._

And that was her momma's answer to everything these days. We don't need nobody else; we've got Samson.

_Ask the Hawkins boy to come by for a reading._

No, that wasn't quite right. It was, _make the Hawkins boy ask to come by for a reading._ Like it was all up to her.

"He doesn't want to come, momma. Not after last time. I told you."

_Make him ask for a reading._

"I already asked him, like I said. He's taken against us both; he doesn't want to come."

_Make him ask -_

"He fucking _won't_, all right?" And she can't help it, she really can't, _he called you a turnip, momma; is that what you wanted to hear? Him calling you names?_

Silence to that.

She picked up the hairbrush again. "Anyway," she said, calmer, "we already have Samson. We don't need anyone else."

Her mother didn't say anything to that. Strangely, the feeling that she'd got it all the wrong way around remained.

* * *

She caught up with Hawkins at dinnertime, figuring that she'd calmed down enough to talk with him. She didn't like the bad blood that kept spilling between them, more so that it weren't of her doing, nor his. Like the whole fucking train was conspiring to make them hate each other, for no good reason, only little petty stupid things that tripped off the tongue one by one. She wonders sometimes if this is how wars start, and how people get killed. Not the big things: not the rift between ideas or armies or nations, but stupid little petty crimes between men, growing like moss between them 'til there's nothing left. Maybe that's ok, though. Maybe that's better than the relentless dust battering against them, wearing them down to nothing but bone and gristle.

"Hey."

Hawkins was at his food, staring down at a little photograph he had half-hid in the crook of his arm, one hand holding a fork laden with potato stew. "Hey."

"Mind if I join you?"

He tilted his head to one side, squinting. "I thought you weren't talking to me no more."

She sat down, scrunching her skirts out of the way. "Yeah. Well. I figure you're real sorry about that."

He paused over his stew. "Why're you here?"

"My momma wants you to come for a reading."

"You said that already."

"I guess I did. Doesn't make it any less true."

"Not what I've found." He chewed slowly, thoughtfully. "I ain't coming for a reading. You can," his mouth twisted, "tell your momma that."

"Why are you being so goddamned stubborn?"

"And why are you still asking, given I've already said no? Is this how womenfolk behave out here?"

"Carnie women, you mean?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did. You're treating us all like we're your enemy, like we're looking for a weakness." She leaned forward. "This ain't the frontier, Ben Hawkins. Things don't work that way here."

"Yes, they do. And this is as much a frontier as anything else. More, even."

She glared. "You know, you can be a real sonofabitch sometimes. I ain't been nothing but nice to you since you came here, and how've you treated me? Like dirt."

"I didn't ask you to be nice to me."

"No." Pause. "No, I don't suppose you did. You'd never even think of it, would you? Never even occur to you to think more of someone for being kind to a stranger."

"I ain't a fan of strangers."

"Boy, did you ever pick the wrong line of work!" She stood then, and shook off her skirts. The dust gripped her newly-washed ankles tightly, caking her in mud just as if she'd never even touched her washcloth. "Go back to your damned bowl of dust and grave soil, then, and see if I fucking care. Like I'd want you around, anyhow."

* * *

She tells her momma that the Hawkins boy ain't coming, and her momma doesn't say anything.

She's not stupid enough to think that's the end of it.

* * *

Later, she goes home and takes off her shawl, shaking off the dust and settling it down over the arm of a chair before she notices that something is amiss. Her mother's missing.

_She walked out,_ she thinks stupidly, an instant before her rational mind takes over. _She was carried out._

_Someone's taken her_, she thinks, and it almost seems like the truth. She can feel certainty building in her, uncaring that it's of her own making. Her mother must have been carried out, because she can't walk. She can't move. _She's a turnip,_ she thinks in Ben Hawkins' voice, and is instantly ashamed of herself.

When she goes outside to find her mother in Hawkins' arms, she's only a little surprised.

* * *

She spent the night putting her mother back to bed, slowly washing her rigid body with a damp cloth and wondering how, if she'd been carried out, her feet had got so cut-up and filthy. "You're a goddamned liar, momma," she whispered. "And you always have to have your way, don't you?"

No answer. Maybe she was exhausted; maybe Ben Hawkins really _had_ done something to her, and she was cussing her mother out for no good reason. Maybe her mother was a liar who liked having her feet washed. "He ain't gonna talk to me again after what you did, you know that, right? You soured him against me, and against you, and against whatever goddamn cause you had in mind when you got the crap beat outta him for no good reason. You realise that, momma? _Right?_"

Her mother's unseeing eyes sought hers. _Every Prophet in her House._

She threw the washcloth down in disgust.

* * *

fin


End file.
